


Keep Moving

by hanzopanzo (floralstiel)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amputation, Blackwatch Era, Cannibalism, Gore, Implied Relationships, M/M, Survival Situation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 22:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8303006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralstiel/pseuds/hanzopanzo
Summary: Reyes practically dragged McCree to the tree line, throwing him into the jungle. He saw more of his surviving men do the same, and with one last look he abandoned the shore, delving into the darkness before him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've thrown together several goretober days I missed at NYCC/fell behind on as a fic instead of sketches :)
> 
> 6\. Cannibalism  
> 7\. Gut spill  
> 10\. Bloodbath  
> 11\. Skewered  
> 12\. Fire/explosion damage  
> 13\. Decay  
> 15\. Emaciation
> 
> Remaining missing days will be filled in a separate fic!

“Fuckin’ hell, cap’n.”

Reyes glanced over, sluggish under the oppressive heat. McCree looked worse, much worse. The fire from their crash was licking at his side—

“Move!” Reyes barked, and some primal need to obey Reyes’s orders had the younger agent springing into action. Reyes grabbed him by his bandana and pulled him along, leading the way through the smoke and fire and debris that continued to rain down. His ears were ringing, all other noise filtered through a bass wash, like he was just nearing the surface from under water. All sound came back in seconds, in a crash of confused yelling, twisting, screeching metal, explosions, Jesse panting in his ear.

Reyes practically dragged McCree to the tree line, throwing him into the jungle. He saw more of his surviving men do the same, and with one last look he abandoned the shore, delving into the darkness before him.

 

McCree’s teeth clacked together noisily, and Reyes could tell he was making an effort not to shudder, to clamp his mouth shut. He was doing a piss-poor job of it. McCree was in bad shape. He’d lost an arm on the beach, cauterized instantly from the blast, and an eye as well, left both. Reyes tightened bandages over his face to cover the gaping hole where his big brown eye used to be, now a mess of gore and jellied organ. Reyes could only do so much for the arm. He bandaged it, thanked whatever god was listening for doing the hard part for him already, and tried to cover McCree’s left flank as much as possible.

They were in constant motion. The jungle didn’t lend itself for easy rest, for sleep; each night Reyes watched McCree try beyond the fire, his sleep fitful and unhelpful. They were both drenched in sweat, in filth and blood, but McCree had the worst of it. Reyes sharpened his knife and tried not to think about what they’d do if they couldn’t get out.

 

They found the other surviving agents within a few days. They were just as starved, as bedraggled and beaten as they were, but Reyes’s mind was already churning. Every day McCree got worse, every day they starved and burned in the jungle. Every flash of movement in the edge of his vision made him flinch, he knew he eyed the others with clear distrust, calculating and cold, but they did the same. He saw how they eyed McCree, looked at his wounds, his pale, sweaty and weakening body. Reyes knew the minds of starving and desperate men, and each night Reyes held McCree close as he fitfully slept, shivering through fever and illness. McCree still hadn't filled out as much as Reyes would've liked before his first mission, and now he felt especially small and vulnerable, his heart beating rabbit quick beneath Reyes’s large hand over his chest.

Reyes watched the fire and the men behind it. They watched back. His arm tightened around McCree’s chest.

 

They returned to the beach to pick through the wreckage a couple days later, when it was safe to return. Reyes looked at the men who didn't make it, their rotting and water bloated corpses filled the air with a god awful stink, McCree threw up bile and spit, and Reyes tried to pick through what wasn't ruined by the decay. There was one man, clinging to life despite it all. McCree heaved again and staggered away from the sight.

The agent had been pinned to the beach by the wreckage, skewered like meat through the shoulder. The wound was festering and rank, the man starved and sallow and wasting away. Reyes couldn't do anything for the impaled man save put him out of his misery.

McCree flinched at the gunshot. They all paused, then kept moving.

 

It was too dangerous to make camp by the beach, so they returned to the jungle’s darkened folds. McCree’s fever finally broke thanks to fresh water and medication Reyes found in the wreckage, hidden from the other agents. He still worried about infection. The man's arm seemed fine—as much as it could—but McCree’s eye was the problem. Each time he changed the bandages the damage seemed to worsen. He knew he was imagining it—goddamn he hoped he was—but in the right lighting McCree’s face looked devilish and black.

 

Reyes woke to shouts and screams. He jerked to his feet and saw the three other agents on McCree, tearing at his clothes and bandages, they had knives, they had a gun, pressed to the man's sweating and jerking temple.

“Gabriel!” McCree screamed raggedly when a stray knife dipped in too deep into his ribs, and Reyes surged into action. He sliced open the first gut he came to, innards spilled out onto the jungle floor in a hot, steaming mess. Most of it landed on Jesse's face and he spluttered, his screams turned to gurgles and whimpers of confused fear. The fight was over in less than a minute. The others were weak and starving, Reyes was an enhanced soldier. They fell easily.

McCree was sobbing by the time he finished, good hand frantically scraping blood and viscera from his mouth and face. Reyes shushed him and gently righted his clothes. His pants buckled and zipped fine but his shirt was ruined. Reyes tore off his outer flak jacket and threw it around the other man's heaving shoulders. He looked impossibly small under the jacket’s bulk.

They kept moving.

 

“They said they was gonna eat me,” McCree slurred against his neck. Reyes had to resort to carrying him on his back, McCree was too weak to continue on his own.

“They said I was g-gonna die anyway. Said I should do the right thing and d-die so they could live.”

Reyes paused, glancing back the way they came. They hadn't gotten that far. He turned around and ignored McCree’s weak questions.

 

“No. Nono no…” McCree shuddered and heaved, jerking his head side to side to keep Reyes from feeding him the roughly carved chunks of charred meat. Tears cut tracks through the caked on blood and dirt on McCree’s twisted face, the same blood that lay putrid on the ground around them, at the site of the attack. Fire crackled behind Reyes back, McCree cried in front of him as he finally took a piece in his mouth, and all around them the sounds of the jungle rose to cacophonous levels.

It sounded like laughter.

 

They were extracted 3 weeks later. McCree was sobbing and grasping at the arms of the medics that pulled him from the jungle, like a screaming babe from its mother’s womb, and Reyes didn't stray far, McCree wouldn't let him. Blood was still on his face, meat in his teeth, in Reyes’s teeth, and he held McCree’s hand on the transport the entire flight home, into the watchpoint, up to the operating room doors where the medical staff held him off.

Reyes didn't see him again until he was out of surgery, fresh wad of gauze covering his cleaned left eye socket and bandages on his amputated arm—it was shorter than it had been in the jungle, infected pieces cut out and removed. Reyes was expecting to be rejected, greeted with fear and distrust after the jungle, but when he opened the door to the recovery room Jesse's good eye lit up and he smiled, clean and good and everything Reyes fought to save in that fucking jungle.

He stepped inside and shut the door.


End file.
